‘More light, you knaves; and turn the tables up,
And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.’
This creates a sense of foreshadowing. Three Montagues are at their family’s enemies’ party and the audience knows that this can only bring trouble.
Tension is built up when Romeo asks a servant who a lady is,
‘What lady is that which doth enrich the hand
Of yonder knight?’
Curiosity arises. Romeo and the audience what to know who this lady that ‘doth teach the torches to burn bright’ is. Romeo is daunted my Juliet’s beauty,
‘So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.’
He compares her to crows which refer the audience back to Act 1, scene 2 when Mercutio spoke of ‘swan and crow’.
In the happy scene of the party Tybalt comes in. Tybalt represents hate and the audience sense that when he says,
‘This, by his voice, should be a Montague.-
Fetch me my rapier, boy.’
Tybalt intends to fight Romeo. He hates all Montagues and is outraged to discover one of them is at his family’s ball. Tybalt means to kill and is not afraid to show it.
‘Now, by the stock and honour of my kin,
To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.’
This rhyming couplet is powerful and shows Tybalt’s determination. He is considered like Capulet’s son but when Tybalt tells his uncle, Capulet is stubborn and does not want to ruin the party with a fight.
‘Show a fair presence and put off these frowns.’
Tybalt shows the depth of his hatred which leads him to confront his Uncle. The jovial party is still going on but in their corner, Capulet and Tybalt argue. The audience doesn’t know whether Capulet or Tybalt will get his way. Capulet loses his cheery mood and becomes angry with Tybalt.
‘You are a princox; go:
Be quiet, or – More light, more light!’
He tries to cover his argument with his nephew to his guests. Capulet is determined not to spoil the mood of his guests in any way.
The audience is then aware of Romeo and Juliet talking together. The atmosphere is no longer heated but full of romance. Shakespeare uses a sonnet which makes their encounter even more romantic.
Romeo and Juliet’s lines get shorter as they stop being as careful.
‘Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purg’d.’
Juliet is aware that she should not be flirting as her role is a pawn that belongs to her father. She cannot make an independent choice about who she is allowed to love.
The Tudor audience know that she is acting inappropriately for a 13 year old noble woman.
Love is present in the atmosphere but the mood abruptly ends when the nurse steps in. Romeo discovers Juliet is a Capulet. The audience’s reaction to the news is just as shocked and horrified as Romeo’s.
‘O dear account! My life is my foe’s debt.’
Juliet discovers at her turn that Romeo is a Montague. She prophesises her own death and which conveys a sense of foreshadowing.
‘My grave is like to be my wedding-bed.’
Shakespeare brings the audience to a conclusion that the story will not have a happy ending.
‘Never was a story of more woe,
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.’
Act four, scene three is just as if not more powerful in terms or moods and emotions than act one, scene five. In this scene, Juliet proves to be a very independent and intelligent woman. She makes her decisions with thought and care, but faces a dilemma of conscience.
Juliet is married to Romeo but on Thursday she is to be married to Paris against her will. She is forced to either break her marriage vows to Romeo or break her religious belief in God and the sacraments by doing what her father says.
Juliet asks the nurse to leave her alone tonight,
‘I pray thee, leave me to myself to-night.’
The audience understand because, they know about the potion and how the nurse has abandoned her. The audience understand about political marriage and the materialism of the Nurse,
‘He that shall layhold of her
Shall have the chinks.’
The audience see that the nurse is practical but heartless as proven when Romeo is banished and they think that she should have been more of a help to Juliet.
Juliet also sends her mother away which is a great step for her as this is most probably the last time she will ever see her.
‘Farewell! - God knows when we shall meet again.’
This is dramatic irony as the audience can guess Juliet and her mother will never meet again. At this moment Juliet is in great need of comfort. She is scared but knows she cannot talk to anyone; she is alone and has to be independent.
‘Nurse! – What should she do here?
My dismal scene I needs must act alone.’
The soliloquy covers all of Juliet’s fears and creates sympathy in the audience to Juliet. She is worried and unsure. She fears the worst and thinks of all the possible situations she may have to face.
‘What if it be a poison, which the friar
Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead.’
She regains faith and overcomes her problems with plausible solutions,
‘For he hath still been tried a holy man:-
I will not entertain so bad a thought.’
She uses negative imagery which brings tension to the audience and in her. She thinks ahead of what may happen once she wakes up in the vault from the potion.
‘The horrible conceit of death and night,
Together with the terror of the place.’
Shakespeare uses visual imagery and onomatopoeia to create empathy,
‘Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,
Lies festering in his shroud.’
Juliet has a lot of imagination as in those days Tybalt would not be bloody. His family would have washed him and put on his best clothes for the burial.
Her imagination and her fears relate to the audiences’. Shakespeare uses expressive sound, visual and smell imagery to help convey Juliet’s fear and her feeling of abandonment.
‘And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad.’
Her speech starts to gain in emotion as she thinks of going mad locked up in the vault. She carries the audience to a level of high pitch emotion and excitement.
‘Romeo, I come! This do I drink to thee.’
Her soliloquy ends on a note of irony as you would drink to someone’s health whilst she is drinking to save him for their future.
In this scene Juliet’s maturity is shown through her acceptance that no one will help her, her marriage to Paris must not go ahead and through her deception of her mother and nurse in the opening lines.
She has to concentrate on a future with Romeo and focus on pursuing her fake death as the only way out.
Throughout both scenes a variety of different emotions and moods are conveyed by imagery, conflict and fear.
In act one, scene five the main situations are love and hate. Hate is portrayed through Tybalt’s loathe of the Montagues and his conflict with Capulet. Love is shown through Romeo and Juliet who fall in love with each other.
Love and hate are two opposing emotions but they are the two most important factors of the play.
In act four, scene three the main emotions and moods conveyed by Shakespeare are fear and abandonment. Juliet is on her own and has to overcome her fears by herself. This creates empathy throughout the whole scene. Her train of thought crosses all scary situations that she may have to deal with.
Overall, the two scenes contain an enormous amount of moods and emotions that give the dramatic play its allure.
Pauline